Hurricane Andrew: The meteorologist who became a hero

When Hurricane Andrew struck South Florida 25 years ago Thursday, a TV meteorologist talked the region through the disaster and became a local hero.

Bryan Norcross, a 1968 graduate of Melbourne High School, displayed an unflappable, knowledgeable style — through 23 straight hours on the air — as the Category 5 hurricane devastated areas south of Miami. In Florida, Andrew caused 44 deaths and $25 billion in damage. With wind speeds up to 165 miles per hour, the most destructive hurricane to hit Florida destroyed 25,000 homes and damaged another 100,000 in south Dade.

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When the National Hurricane Center lost its radar, Norcross advised the hurricane chief on the storm's position. Norcross comforted the distressed and told viewers what to do when winds blew off their roofs. Through the catastrophe, Norcross earned the public's gratitude, and his work still impresses TV industry insiders.

He gave one of the great performances in local TV news history, said Al Tompkins, an instructor at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg.

"He didn't scare people; he prepared people," Tompkins said. "Two things set him apart: He knew his community in an intimate way. He focused on preparation, not just on how big and bad it was, but on what you should be doing."

Norcross, who lives in Miami Beach and works as senior hurricane specialist for The Weather Channel, shares his memories in the book "My Hurricane Andrew Story."

"Hurricane Andrew taught us how to build structures that can be inhabitable after any hurricane," Norcross, 66, said in an interview. "The number one lesson from Andrew is that the worst does happen. Storms don't always jog away from the coast. They don't always come in weaker that forecast."

After Andrew, Norcross was dubbed the "hurricane hunk." NBC aired a 1993 TV movie in which Ted Wass, the father on "Blossom," played Norcross. But the weatherman's tenacity and hard work made that celebrity possible.

"Bryan had done a lot of preparedness work before the hurricane, and it paid off during the hurricane," said Bob Sheets, former director of the National Hurricane Center. "Basically, he was able to stay on the air while others were not and gave comforting words to those experiencing the hurricane. It made his career."

Norcross agreed that Andrew proved that preparation works. "We at WTVJ could not have done what we did if we hadn't spent 2 1/2 years looking at every technical system we used and asking, what if that failed?" he said. "We ended up using every back-up system during the Andrew coverage."

Norcross' seriousness has won the respect of Jon Ahlquist, an associate professor of meteorology at Florida State University. Norcross earned FSU's first master's degree merging meteorology and broadcasting.

"Over the years, Bryan has worked to make it easier for people to get clear, reliable weather information," Ahlquist said. "He has never stopped growing as a meteorologist and communicator. … He cares greatly for people's safety and welfare."

Norcross attributes his interest in education in part to growing up in the Melbourne area. "The place was electric with innovation and was populated with really smart people — many of the best and the brightest of the Greatest Generation," he said. "A large percentage of my classmates were the children of NASA engineers, as was I. We were intrinsically and hereditarily sciency people."

He was inspired by the principal at Melbourne High School, B. Frank Brown, "a brilliant guy with unconventional ideas," Norcross said. "The motto across the entrance to the school was 'Imagination is more important than knowledge' (an Einstein quote), and Principal Brown meant it."

During Andrew, Norcross had to be a teacher.

"For hours and hours, he took questions on the air," Tompkins said. "It was brilliant. He took this big thing and made it personal. He was a low-adjective TV person, very factual, calm and steady."

Bryan Norcross, who helped South Florida make it through Hurricane Andrew, now works for The Weather Channel. (The Weather Channel)

Norcross' performance was a reminder that journalism is a public service. WTVJ received hundreds of grateful calls for Norcross after the storm. He became known as "the man who talked South Florida through" the hurricane — a Miami Herald headline that is quoted on his book's cover.

He would go on to work elsewhere, and his contributions may mean little to those who don't remember Andrew. But it's different for anyone who lived through the storm and recalls his stellar example. Norcross puts that legacy in modest terms.

"I am gratified and humbled by the outpouring of affection and emotion I still get today from people that heard my voice on the radio while they were scared to death in their disintegrating homes," he said. "They tell me that somehow I gave them the strength to see it through. As it was happening, I was just dealing with it one minute at a time."